Punske colloquium

Morphological regularity as a consequence of post-syntactic movement: Lessons from English nominalization patterns

Within syntax-all-the-way-through models of grammar, the existence of regular and irregular morphological patterns is of considerable interest. Without a true lexicon, the most natural solution to the difference must be syntactic. I discuss and compare two models of syntactically driven morphological regularity couched within Distributed Morphology: a lowering model (ala Embick and Noyer 2001 and subsequent) and a phase-based approach. I show that the English nominalization patterns are best accounted for with a lowering approach. Using this same model, I also solve a long-standing puzzle of permitted event types in English nominalization.